


cul eut

by sad_goomy



Series: Kiss Me(me) [2]
Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: Sun & Moon | Pokemon Sun & Moon Versions
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Banter, F/M, Feelings Realization, First Kiss, Graduate Student Gladion, Late at Night, Undergrad Moon, Unresolved Sexual Tension, lonashipping, mahinashipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-06
Updated: 2019-02-06
Packaged: 2019-10-23 15:16:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17685929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sad_goomy/pseuds/sad_goomy
Summary: Moon is an undergrad who's stuck as the research assistant to Gladion, an uptight PhD candidate.Luckily they get along very well and there is absolutely no sexual tension.





	cul eut

 

**15\. a quick kiss**

 

* * *

  

When Moon applied for a position as a research assistant, working with a stuffy Ph.D. candidate with a short fuse was far from her first choice. 

She'd heard the dazzling stories of undergrads who worked directly with Professor Kukui in zoology, spending days out in the field and going on to award-winning discoveries. She marveled at the tales of students who worked under Dr. Burnet in astrophysics, traveling across the islands and spending nights at Hokulani Observatory to witness astronomical marvels firsthand. 

What she got was late nights in a tiny office with Gladion. 

Moon is seriously considering dropping out. 

The only upside is that the office has a particularly comfy armchair that she's made her home as she works on her laptop, typing up reports and poring over data – Gladion declared that he's more than capable of handling the "real work," and that the only thing he could really trust a measly undergrad with is the menial tasks. 

Still, it's not a totally bad gig. The work they're doing is rather interesting, and directly applies to her Environmental Science major – maybe most people don't find water management fascinating, but Moon can't think of many other ways she'd rather be spending her Friday nights. Now that they're approaching two months working together, he's also started to give her more meaningful work to do. It helps that she's more than capable and has also saved his ass a few times since he has a bad habit of working quickly and not backing up his files (and she's meticulous with a hard drive). And she's gotten quite used to their battle of wits, to the point that she finds herself daydreaming about possible retorts in her classes. 

Not that they're really friends. He's said so himself, multiple times, making sure to emphasize his seniority (of barely five years) and their relationship (strictly professional). Moon only rolls her eyes whenever he brings it up, content to simply mutter, "Methinks the lady doth protest too much," which shuts him up and gets them back to working, if not with a strange shift in the air between them. 

But it's late on a Tuesday night when she realizes just what kind of trouble they're really in. 

She yawns from her spot on the armchair, sitting cross-legged with her laptop open to last week's collection of data. Gladion looks over at her, the dark circles under his eyes evident as he smirks. "Past your bedtime?" 

"It's past yours, too, Grandpa." He frowns at the nickname, which she came up with when he brought up their age difference (again,  _five years_ ) for the dozenth time. Moon glances at the clock on her laptop, groaning when she realizes it's past midnight and she has yet to finish this report. It's been a rough week for both of them, her having to balance her other classwork, and him having a deadline approaching to apply for more funding. She thought it would surely drive them to each other's throats; strangely, it's brought out a more endearing side in both of them as they struggle to stay up together, working on the one thing they both love. 

Gladion pauses in his typing, sitting back in his chair and closing his eyes. Moon tries not to stare, but she finds her eyes tracing the cut of his jawline, and the two piercings that line his ears that he refuses to tell her the story behind no matter how much she asks. When his eyes open once more she forces her gaze back on her screen – she's staring because she's tired and zoning out, obviously, but there's no doubt he'd tease her relentlessly anyway. He sighs, glancing over at her in her ripped jeans and oversized sweatshirt. "At least you thought ahead and didn't wear anything nice." 

She gives him an unimpressed glare. "At least you wore all black so that you won't have to change." 

"Change for what?" 

"Your funeral, since this deadline is about to slaughter you." 

He blinks, sleep deprivation slowing his mind. 

Then he laughs, honest to god  _laughs_ , and Moon feels something strange stir within her.  

Something worryingly... _pleasant._  

"That's true enough," he muses, and she's wondering why he doesn't try to come up with an argument instead. It's not like him to admit that she's right, much less laugh along with her jabs thrown at him, but then she reasons they're both in a strange emotional state from a week of late nights. With the laughter out of his system, he seems to sober up a little, sitting up and going back to his computer. "If it weren't for my own illegible notes, we might be able to go home earlier." 

"Betrayed by your own shorthand?" 

"Don't act so smug when you can barely decipher your own handwriting." 

He tries to hide his smile, but she can tell he's proud at the crack, and she has to admit it's a good one as she chuckles behind her laptop screen. Realizing she can barely focus on the words she's typing, she rubs at her eyes and feels the coffee machine down the hall calling her name. She stands and stretches, her back aching and her legs relieved to finally be in use again. 

"Going somewhere?" he asks, forcing his eyes to remain on his computer screen and not on the strip of skin that's revealed when her arms stretch above her head. 

She nods. "Getting coffee. You want some?" 

"From the disgusting machine in the sad excuse for a kitchen?" 

"No, from the finest café in Kalos because either of us have standards." 

"...make it a double espresso." 

She smirks, about to walk out of the office when he calls, "Moon?" She turns with a hum, watching as he stares at his notepad with furrowed brows. When he looks back up, he's no less confused as he asks, "What do you think 'cul eut' stands for?" 

Chewing her cheek, she gives it a moment of thought but ultimately shrugs. "Not sure." 

"Figured. Oh, and bring some sugar packets." 

As she walks down the hall, she can't get the odd shorthand out of her head. The phrase haunts her as she starts up the ancient coffee machine, grabbing the two cleanest mugs she can find in the cabinets and stuffing her pockets with sugar packets. As her mug fills with plain black coffee, she mulls over "cul eut" so much that it starts to seem like an ancient Latin phrase that she's deciphering, rather than another example of Gladion's strange note-taking. 

It's one of many odd things about the Ph.D. candidate that Moon has grown accustomed to. There's also the way he insists on black coffee only to load it up with sugar. Then there's how he seems to be unimpressed with everyone yet speaks so fondly of his sister that Moon feels her heart clench from secondhand adoration. Who could forget the time she caught him smiling at photos of his rescue dog and forced him to tell her all about Silvally? And then there's the way he concentrates on especially difficult problems, how his brows furrow in concentration and he bites down on his thumb or his bottom lip, and she imagines how he might do the same to her neck and - 

And  _oh no_. 

 _Oh,_ _please god_   ** _no_ ** _._  

She cannot be having an existential crisis about the uptight Ph.D. candidate in the crappy kitchen in the graduate studies offices. But here she is, only snapped out of it by the coffee machine groaning as it finishes pouring his double espresso, and she hurries to shut the machine off and walk back down the hall, trying to outrun the thoughts of how cute he is sometimes and  _no stop that he's insufferable and her boss kind of._  

Desperate to find anything to focus on instead, her mind goes back to "cul eut," trying to decipher the code as if her life depends on it. The more she mulls it over, the less certain she is that she'll ever be able to figure it out, until she reaches the office once more and sets down their mugs only for the realization to hit her with a wave of relief. 

"Cultural eutrophication." 

Gladion jumps in his chair, startled by the way she slams the mugs on his desk and the sudden outburst. "What?" 

"Your notes." The sudden discovery coupled with the sudden crisis has her nearly hysterical at this point – she's gone through the whole range of human emotion in the past ten minutes alone. With a smile that borders on manic she lets out an astonished chuckle and repeats, "Cultural eutrophication. Cul eut." 

His lips part in shock, and he hurries to look through his notes, flipping the pages and reciting the words silently before looking back up at her with a grin that has no business brining out his dimples. "You're right. My god, you're right!" 

She smirks, opens her mouth to say something snarky, and he stands, goes to try and thank her, and then something inexplicable happens. 

 

It's half a second long but there's no denying what just happened. 

 

He kissed her. Just a quick peck on the corner of her mouth, but he kissed her nonetheless in his rush of gratitude and the haze of a late night in his office. 

"Oh," she breathes, fighting the urge to touch the spot because she swears she can still feel his lips there (and by god does she want to feel it again). 

"Oh," he whispers, realizing that he's lost any hope in hiding his attraction to the undergrad (and that he really couldn't hope to keep it up much longer anyway). 

They stare. They think they should ignore it. They should laugh it off, chalk it up to a weird night and go back to their very comfortable, very safe routine of quips and hidden glances. 

But then her back hits the wall and his lips crash into hers and her fingers are in his hair and she only manages to gasp out, " _Oh_." 

Oh  _no_. 

But oh _f_ _inally_ _._  

 

**Author's Note:**

> You two better stop before you crush the sugar packets in Moon's pocket jfc


End file.
